Crossing the "Cloud" When We Get to It

Very soon, we are about to step into into the unknown territory. We’re at the verge of venturing into the cloud platform of business where the priority has shifted from physical hardware to intangible products. And where intangibility is concerned, the quality service level must be second to none. Once a customer places an order online, delivery and support are of utmost importance. Everything happens in real-time and there’s very little margin for error. It’s absolutely different in terms of handling its operations.  It challenges your reaction time, and your capability as a company, as a brand, and as a team.

TimeTec Cloud business rides on a subscription-bases, where a customer signs up, purchases a subscription plan, and begins the subscription.  As simple as it sounds, to ensure the fluidity of its operation is the complete opposite. We have gone to hell and back to confirm that the flow is unflawed, making sure that our resellers are as excited as we are and that we’d be able to match the needs of our customers at anytime. Loopholes if any, are just too risky to not rectify immediately, and the cloud-centricity of the design must be prevalent to ensure the customer’s user-friendliness experience.

I’ve been in this business for more than 12 years dealing with hardware and software applications; to prepare the team for the cloud business platform is far from being a walk in the park. They need to grasp the understanding of a cloud business nature to be able to deliver customer’s expectancies. They have to be on their toes to handle instant customer’s enquiries/complaints/requests for support, and so on. The lead-time expected in any online business is almost instantaneous; the tolerance level of the customer’s close to zero.

Despite the concerns we have, the cloud computing technology gets us excited as it brings biometrics and attendance to another level. Cloud is the future; cloud is where we want to be. TimeTec Cloud redefines the possibilities in a workforce management software; it further emphasizes the advantages of biometrics system for SMEs.  Get round-the-clock consolidated data accessibility, accurate report analysis, and seamless integration with 3^rd party application, all with your TimeTec scalable investment. 

Get started with a TimeTec Trial account and begin to understand the advantages and benefits of using a cloud-based workforce management for your company!

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

Logo Design: Trivial Much?

The Towers: Taken by yours truly while in the car in Kuala Lumpur

There was a big hoo-hah leading to the Malaysia Independence Day last Friday. From the logo to the song to the tagline introduced, all had received constant mockery by Malaysians, online and offline. The logo, designed by a phantom so-called designer, didn’t reflect the work of a professional and failed to carry the spirit of the nation’s 55^th year of Independence. Some equated the work to homework of a primary student who has just learned to use PowerPoint presentation in the 90s. The elements of the logo were not cohesive and even worse; an explanation about every element was offered in a table below the logo. To me, it was hilarious for a country that spends so much time talking about the development of ICT, our vision and mission to be a developed nation supposedly 8 years from now, to accept such level of work for a national level event. I reckon the designer and the people in charge were not even aware that this is year 2012 and that we have left 1992 twenty years ago.

Malaysian netizens from the world over came together in protest of this ridiculous logo designed for this auspicious day, forcing the government to drop the adoption of this logo totally. Many designers offered their alternative designs of the logo and not surprisingly, many are capable of producing far more artistic and memorable logos for the day.

These same designers were offended by the notion that logo design is trivial, and was treated as an “anybody-can-do” type of task. According to them, designing a logo involves a lot of creativity, as it has to be precise, compact, appealing and mesmerizing, and at the same time, be symbolic and reflective of a deeper meaning. A logo is an emblem of a brand, so to speak.

Apple does not use any alphabets in their logo, yet it grabs wide attention from its consumer market, so much so that people feel proud of owning an Apple-branded device. Mercedez has a three-pointed star inside a circle and when your car key also has that, it means something nice; simple yet so powerful.

When it comes to designing a logo, the question would be what kind of perception do we want to transpire from the logo.

TimeTec Web Implementation Made Easy with T-Box

FingerTec introduced its T-box recently and we are proud to present our newly designed logo for the product. The T symbolizes the TimeTec Web which centralizes the data in one place, and this T-box makes TimeTec Web deployment easy with preconfigured settings. What do you think about this logo?

T-box Logo

Malaysia marked its 55^th year of Independence last Friday with great celebration from morning till night. Everyone was proud to raise our Jalur Gemilang and we sang praises to our nation’s heroes. But this young country needs to do so much more for the challenging future. One thing to note though, self-praise and narcissism is counter-productive, impolite, and gets you no where - let the praise come from others. And in this Facebook era, don’t post something and Like it yourself. If you’ve posted it up for others to see, then you might as well let them be the judge of it.

I wish my country a prosperous year ahead and we should open to change for the better.

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ

Write for your brand

We don’t have summer holidays in our country because apparently, we are blessed with summer all year long …and that’s potential a joke, if you hadn’t noticed. Now is the two weeks school holiday in Malaysia and parents take time off to bring their kids away for a short break and us included. We flew to Penang last weekend for a short weekend getaway and for that 45 minutes flight, instead of taking an interrupted nap because some kids in front my seats wouldn’t want to be strapped in seat belt, I took the time to read the inflight magazine, Travel 3sixty by AirAsia.

It’s not like I didn’t bring my own magazine but since the magazine was in front of me I just grabbed it. For that effort, now I know who’s who in AirAsia, I learned about their staff’s past activities and opinions, I know that AirAsia fly to Manila and Kerala, dived into their plans and aspirations, and I feel closer to the brand just by flipping over that simple magazine. The effort is not new, you would say. Other airlines also have done it for so long. And how would the same effort apply to other industries, which are not service-oriented?

Your concern is valid because time is an essence and not many people are ready to spend their time reading about trivial things that are irrelevant to their lives. Hence, the key to this strategy is ‘relevant’. I believe that if the pieces are relevant, writing could be one of the best strategies you could use to approach your customers or potential customers in this time and age, in various industries. We’ve been preaching about writing for quite sometimes now. It’s not like we are asking for a novel; anecdotes would suffice. It’s definitely not academic or expert opinions but having your brand stories written post-event, and save them somewhere, at the end of the day you have your brand history written in sequence. With the availability of the social media that could help you spread your news viral, why not?

You would never remember that time if you don't start writing about it!

We launched our Beyond Biometrics early this year and so far we have distributed close to 10 thousands to our clients and during exhibitions. Many are worried about who’s going to read, whether the pieces are newsworthy, I would say, don’t think too much. As long as the stories are not damaging and it represents what your brand/company is doing, go ahead and write some.

Why is it important for us to tell our stories? It’s simple, because people could relate better with the brand. By reading that we had a birthday party, you know that humans work in FingerTec.

Again, less worry about whose gonna read what you write. Concentrate on producing informative, fun and cool articles and trust me, nobody is gonna grade you.

And if you have stories to tell us, click here! We are thrilled to hear from you. 

by Norana Johar, COO, FingerTec HQ